The New York Times Essay Contest - Put Your Ethics Where Your Mouth Is

Thousands of readers took us up on our challenge to make an ethical case for eating meat. Our panel of judges — Mark Bittman, Jonathan Safran Foer, Andrew Light, Michael Pollan, Peter Singer — narrowed the pool down to these six finalists. Vote below by midnight on April 24 on the one you think makes the strongest case.

What do you think? Are any of these six essays any good at all or are they each just justifications of human selfishness and speciesism? The first one on this list is particularly interesting. When you go to the New York Times to read these essays, they will not be in the same order they are listed here. Somehow the newspaper is able to switch up the order every time someone goes to the page. So look for them by the title. Thank you so much!!

Replies to This Discussion

These results are somewhat surprising considering the aim of this competition. I think the "40 year" one deserves our vote! Yes, it's not perfect, but what I way to turn the tables on the intent of this contest!!!

The essay titled "I’m About to Eat Meat for the First Time in 40 Years" won the contest with 38% of the vote. I think it's a shame that more vegans didn't bother to enter the contest. I believe it was an excellent opportunity for vegan education wasted.

Carolyn, I think you're off the mark on this. I think vegans apparently did not submit essays because the contest was a call to DEFEND meat consumption, not oppose it, so how or what could they have written when they are AGAINST meat consumption? At least that's what I thought; that's why I, at least, never even thought to enter it.

Carolyn Bailey said:

The essay titled "I’m About to Eat Meat for the First Time in 40 Years" won the contest with 38% of the vote. I think it's a shame that more vegans didn't bother to enter the contest. I believe it was an excellent opportunity for vegan education wasted.

When I first heard about this contest I had intended on submitting an entry myself, but time got away from me and I didn't. I understand the contest was one to "Tell Us Why It's Ethical to Eat Meat", but I saw that as a wonderful opportunity for vegan education, in a similar way that THIS ENTRY had made their case. This submission, which received more than double the votes of any other submission, ended their essay with:

In vitro meat is real meat, grown from real cow, chicken, pig and fish cells, all grown in culture without the mess and misery, without pigs frozen to the sides of metal transport trucks in winter and without intensive water use, massive manure lagoons that leach into streams or antibiotics that are sprayed onto and ingested by live animals and which can no longer fight ever-stronger, drug-resistant bacteria. It comes without E. coli, campylobacter, salmonella or other health problems that are unavoidable when meat comes from animals who defecate. It comes without the need for excuses. It is ethical meat. Aside from accidental roadkill or the fish washed up dead on the shore, it is perhaps the only ethical meat.

I also believe that if we, as advocates, are to fully understand the ethical arguments in favour of veganism, we need to seriously explore and understand the ethical arguments for eating other animals. Part of the ARZone mission statement, which I think is relevant here, reads: "We cannot form honest opinions about that which we do not understand, and we cannot understand that which we do not carefully consider."

I think an opportunity was missed here. The contest was open to everyone to speak about the ethics of eating others, and I can't help but think that the more than 50 scholars who signed a letter protesting this contest could have spent their time better by submitting entries themselves.

This was a post Tim made at the time, explaining his intention to enter the contest as well:

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Animal Rights Zone (ARZone) is an animal rights site. As such, it is the position of ARZone that it is only by ending completely the use of other animal as things can we fulfill our moral obligations to them.